Greetings to you all my fellow Ugandans. It was with great relief that homes and businesses across our country welcomed the easing of most measures of the 42-day partial countrywide COVID-19 lockdown on 30th July 2021 by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Uganda. On the other hand, you all heard that our Education Institutions of Learning shall remain closed for some time until certain conditions are attended to. These conditions included getting all our teaching staff in these Institutions and the learners aged 12 to 18 years vaccinated.
Getting our teaching staff and learners vaccinated is first and foremost for their own personal wellbeing and safety. As you all know, delivery of learning is a highly interactive physical process in the context of our country. Most formal learning takes place in a designated physical learning environment called a school or institution of learning. However, delivery of learning is not by teaching staff alone. They are supported by some critical non-teaching staff. Therefore, in our mobilization efforts for teaching staff to get vaccinated, we do include the critical non-teaching staff that work closely with the learners.
As the Ministry of Education and Sports, we have engaged with our sister Ministry; the Ministry of Health, to align our efforts towards getting teachers and learners above 18 years of age vaccinated. The Ministry of Health does publish information about districts and Health facilities these vaccines have been supplied to. The Ministry of Health shall inform the public once COVID- 19 vaccines that are approved for people aged 12 – 16 years of age have become available. All vaccines issued by government are not to be paid for by the recipients.
Today, we appeal to the public to join us in efforts of mobilizing our teachers and learners aged 18 years and above in all the Education Institutions of Learning – both public and private, to go for their COVID-19 vaccination jab. The task of mobilizing our teachers and learners to get vaccinated cannot be left to the Ministry responsible for Education alone.
As a Ministry, we urge all our collaborative stakeholders in the local governments such as District Chairpersons and Councilors, RDCs and RCCs, CAOs, DEOs among others to go out and sound the trumpet of mobilizing teachers to be vaccinated. We also extend our appeal to the various fraternity associations that bring together teaching staff, non-teaching staff, head teachers, principals, and other heads of tertiary institutions. Please use your formal and informal structures to get your respective teaching staff and the critical non-academic staff to go get their COVID-19 jab.
Should you have any questions in relation to this statement, please contact our Public Relations Office at the Ministry of Education and Sports on 0417-893615 or through our social media platforms as applicable.
We thank you for listening and responding to this call.
First Lady, Hon. Janet K. Museveni
MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND SPORTS
